Technology to the rescue! In the U.S., more than 500,000 people living on the California coastline between Santa Barbara and San Diego have been evacuated from their homes over the past 36 hours due to the threat from massive wildfires burning through an area of 490,000 acres in the Southern California coastal forests (see satellite image).

Evacuees have relied on various Web 2.0 technologies – text messages, blog postings, streaming video, Podcasts, images from Google Maps, geographical information systems mapping the spread of the fires generated by NASA satellites or unmanned planes, an American Red Cross database that allows family members to communicate, and even Craigs List – to stay current with urgent public safety announcements.